Here's a tangent. Is Lois' alter ego one word or two?
The DVD title lists her name as two words ("Ultra Woman"), all caps. That's also how the title appears in the episode itself. (That's the scene where Lois has just pulled an eight-foot iron gate off its hinges and is standing there holding it with a worried look on her face.)
But a number of authors have written it as one word ("Ultrawoman"), presumably because Clark's alter ego is a one-word name. And I've not run across any discussion of this before. It makes me wonder which one is right - or if it really matters.
But back to the actual thread.
I think that one of the reasons "Ultra Woman" doesn't flow as well off the tongue as does "Superman" is cultural. We in the Western world have been exposed to this mythical hero for all of our lives, and the name Superman has become part and parcel of our daily lives. The suit, the attitude, the "Look up in the sky!" pronouncement, all of it has been absorbed into our lives. We see, we hear, we know who he is.
Not so Ultra Woman. She's a construct from the TV show to advance the romance between Clark and Lois. Having the responsibilities of Superman for a few days gave Lois a taste of what Clark goes through all the time, and it enabled her to understand him so much better.
But the character vanished after one episode and did not return. She has no comic titles dedicated to her adventures, no TV show, no marketing muscle behind her legend, no identifying tag line, nothing. We haven't made her part of our culture like we have Superman.
So if "Ultra Woman" sounds funky to you, it's natural. Not only are there real language problems with the name, it's not a part of our culture, and therefore strange to us. And it will probably remain strange to us no matter how many words we use to spell it.
